America has had several episodes in which the U.S. government trampled upon rights and Americans did nothing about it or even approved of it. Usually wars were the occasion. These were followed by a return to normalcy on the part of both government and people, although bad precedents had been set.
Obama posed as something of a president who would return the country to normalcy, and many Americans hoped that this would be the case. However, his belief in normalcy was non-existent. His belief is in socialistic policies at home and policies of empire abroad. No normalcy can be expected from him whatsoever.
To understand what normalcy means, I suggest reading the excellent speech given by Warren G. Harding on this subject. It’s easy to follow and understand. The war he refers to, which is World War I, can be replaced by the war on terror, with its wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, and now extending into African countries. Never in a million years could Obama give such a speech.
Surveys of historians place Harding as one of the worst presidents. This shows how little historians know as a group, how little their interpretations can be trusted, and how biased they tend to be. In fact, this one speech makes more sense than anything that has come out of establishment Washington in decades.
I extract a few quotes. Harding’s thoughts are directly applicable to the current vexing issues that face Americans.
“[war] fever has rendered men irrational” This applies today.
“America’s present need is not…submergence in internationality” This applies today.
Harding strongly criticized Wilson’s internationalism, without labeling it as such.
“It is one thing to battle successfully against world domination by military autocracy…but it is quite another thing to revise human nature and suspend the fundamental laws of life and all of life’s acquirements.” He’s saying that attempting to remake human nature, conflicts, and create institutions of world peace through war and international force is a futile endeavor. He goes on:
“We challenged the proposal that an armed autocrat should dominate the world; it ill becomes us to assume that a rhetorical autocrat shall direct all humanity.” He doesn’t want the U.S. to be that world autocrat, directing all humanity. He sees the fight against Germany as having been a one-off event. There should not be a permanent war against all evils. Instead:
“we may set our own house in order” and
“This republic has its ample tasks. If we put an end to false economics which lure humanity to utter chaos, ours will be the commanding example of world leadership today. If we can prove a representative popular government under which a citizenship seeks what it may do for the government rather than what the government may do for individuals, we shall do more to make democracy safe for the world than all armed conflict ever recorded. The world needs to be reminded that all human ills are not curable by legislation, and that quantity of statutory enactment and excess of government offer no substitute for quality of citizenship.”
No candidate of either party says anything remotely like this, or this:
“But war has not abolished work, has not established the processes of seizure or the rule of physical might. Nor has it provided a governmental panacea for human ills, or the magic touch that makes failure a success.”
Nor do politicians understand law as Harding did:
“There is no new appraisal for the supremacy of law. That is a thing surpassing and eternal. A contempt for international law wrought the supreme tragedy, contempt for our national and state laws will rend the glory of the republic, and failure to abide the proven laws of to-day’s civilization will lead to temporary chaos.”
Instead, today politicians routinely scourge the rule of law and override it.
Here is yet another jab at Wilsonianism:
“Let us stop to consider that tranquility at home is more precious than peace abroad, and that both our good fortune and our eminence are dependent on the normal forward stride of all the American people.” Instead of attempting to bring peace or democracy or safety for democracy to every corner of the world, Harding called for “the normal forward stride” domestically. He immediately added
“Nothing is so imperative to-day as efficient production and efficient transportation, to adjust the balances in our own transactions and to hold our place in the activities of the world.”
The economy was out of whack due to the war, just as today’s economy is out of whack due to terrible monetary, fiscal, regulatory policies as well as bad laws that have wrecked whole markets and sectors. Do we hear any establishment politicians proposing a sensible reconstruction along the lines that Harding called for?
“No worth-while republic ever went the tragic way to destruction, which did not begin the downward course through luxury of life and extravagance of living. More, the simple living and thrifty people will be the first to recover from a war’s waste and all its burdens, and our people ought to be the first recovered.”
Harding knew that saving, not debt, was the way to recovery and prosperity. Today’s politicians and institutions of government believe the opposite. That is why the country is on “the tragic way to destruction”.
Not every element of Harding’s thought will meet with our approval, of course. What should make us stop and think is his anti-Wilsonianism, going against utopian ideas, and his call for the American people to restore its business orientation on a sound basis. The U.S. government of today is going in precisely the opposite direction.
This is why the question is pertinent: Will the U.S. government return the country to normalcy? Or has it brought the country so far away from domestic concerns and proper domestic policies and into improper internationalism that normalcy is only a highly improbable and remote possibility?
There can be no return to normalcy without first understanding that this is an appropriate overall direction for the U.S. government and the American people to take. If the government doesn’t alter its course, then Americans will have to find alternative ways to normalcy themselves. They will have no choice.
10:56 am on April 15, 2014
